(Alright, how about now.)
I do not own the Legend of Zelda.
(Welp, there goes the one about Stargate too. I think I'm just going to give up now and let the Universe or whatever this is take care of the disclaimers now, since it seems so keen on it.)
No.
(Wait, what!?)
The first ten steps or so down the spiral path were smooth, uneventful, and actually relatively boring.
Then Demise shot lightning at them, and all of that went out a window. It wasn't even normal lightning, like the kind that other villains might call from the sky. No, this lightning was coming straight out of Demise's hands, and it also happened to be on fire. How lightning could be on fire was something that at least a few of the Links - most specifically Vio - would really like to investigate, but since this lightning was being aimed with the intent to kill, that was going to have to wait.
Most of the Links had never had lightning thrown at them before, after all. This resulted in a lot of startled screeching, followed by dodging, followed by Lore saying something in Firetongue that was probably a curse word, but nobody was really sure.
However, there wasn't time to debate that either.
"WHY IS THERE LIGHTNING!?" Steam shrieked as he ran for his life. "WHY IS LIGHTNING HAPPENING!?"
"Because I can!" Demise snarled, then paused, and snapped, "I will not, now stop shouting at me! ...Will you let me focus!?"
"Who are you talking to?" Lore asked curiously, and somewhat suicidally.
"NOT YOU!" Demise roared, blasting more lightning.
"Oh my Din," Sketch muttered in a frantic rush, the sort of statement that just came out without any real thought behind it. "Oh my Din, oh my Din, oh my Din. We're going to die."
"Stop saying that," Mask snapped.
"DOWN!" Dusk bellowed, and everyone flattened themselves to the ground as more lightning streaked overhead.
"We're going to die!"
"Your panic is not helping!"
"DODGE!" Gen screamed, just before yet more lightning crashed in. The group scattered, albeit not very much because of the barrier keeping them all in, which resulted in them all regrouping just a few moments later.
"Does anybody have anything that can possibly be used as storm defense?" Realm asked. "Could the Wind Waker redirect this?"
"Wouldn't work, that stuff's not exactly natural," Wind replied, scowling. "There's a big difference between magic lightning and regular lightning that's being fueled by a magical source."
"Dang. Okay, anybody got other ideas?"
"Mirror Shield?" Ocarina suggested.
"Made of metal and highly conductive. Terrible idea," Mask informed him.
"...You say that like you've got personal experience."
"Spoilers."
"INCOMING!" Green screeched, and everybody ducked again as Demise fired off another attack.
"Okay, that's it!" Lore declared from his position on the dirt. He shot back up to his feet and planted himself in place, then jammed his arm into his Bag just as Demise fired off another round of electricity.
Now, normal physics dictated that Lore could not outdraw a lightning bolt. However, Lore did not care about normal physics, and somehow this apparently made him immune to said physics. As a result, Lore not only was able to take his hand out of his Bag before the lightning got to him, but he was also able to brandish the item he'd drawn from his Bag.
Which was how, in a staggering display of complete disregard for how the Universe worked, Lore hit the incoming lightning right back to where it came from… with his Bug Net.
"What," Gen sputtered.
"That's how we do it!" Lore declared, satisfied.
"How."
"Well you see-"
"Later," Dusk interrupted. "Small problem, that didn't seem to do much."
Sure enough, Demise had a small black scorch march on the left side of his abdomen, but it didn't seem like he'd noticed. He looked more irritated than anything else.
"Nothing you can do," he growled, "can compare to the bagpipes."
"...I don't know what that means," Lore admitted, wide eyed at the very idea.
"This is acceptable," Demise replied coolly. And followed up his statement with yet more lightning, and also some dark-smoky magic blasts interspersed with odd yellow flashes. Everyone immediately dodged; and the unfortunate pieces of foliage that got hit instead shriveled into limpness, or froze into stone respectively. There was a collective "Meep" noise from the group.
"Hang on, I know that stuff," Dusk said suddenly, staring intently at the formerly vibrant grasses which were now lying limply on the ground, yellowed and sickly and with floating black squares hovering around them, for some reason. "That's Twilight."
"The stuff that invaded your Hyrule?" Wind clarified.
"It's identical," Dusk confirmed, leaning in close. "Which doesn't make sense, because I don't think the Twilight exists yet?"
"No idea, but that's probably a fair assumption," Gen agreed.
"So why can Demise summon it?"
"Let's ask him," Lore said, either entirely ignorant or just entirely ignoring how bad of an idea that was. It was probably both, actually, though he was cautious enough to just creep forwards and poke his head over the edge to stare down at Demise, rather than his whole body. But then he made the whole thing pointless by screaming, "HEY! WHY CAN YOU DO THE TWILIGHT THING WHEN THE TWILIGHT THING MIGHT NOT EXIST YET?!"
"That is for me to know, and for you to die wondering about," Demise snapped. Then he used the fact that Lore had given away their position to launch another round of attacks. Everyone scattered again, which also had the effect of herding them all farther down the spiral, and consequently closer to Demise.
"He's got more than just the Twilight," Wind gasped, a few minutes later as everyone crouched out of sight and took a quick breather. "I recognize that petrification magic. That's what Bellum uses. Used. You know what I mean."
"And have you guys noticed that he keeps arguing with someone?" Vio put in. "It's like there's some conversation happening that only he can hear."
"...Wait," Mask said. "Wait. He said he was the one who made the holes, right?"
Everyone gave a general agreement that, yes, Demise had said that.
"All the holes correspond to a villain," Mask breathed. "You don't think…?"
"None of them are actually gone," Vio muttered slowly, and with great realization. "They didn't get erased, they got removed… and if Demise is the one who removed them, then…"
"They're all in his head," Wind finished. "They're in his head, and he's got their powers. Farore."
Several of the Links looked like they really wished this thought hadn't occurred to them. Several more of the Links were having the sudden realization that their own personal adversary was in the fight with them. A few of the Links did some quick mental math and came to the unfortunate conclusion that they were actually fighting sixteen superpowered supervillains, rather than just one.
"We're going to die," Sketch whimpered, and nobody bothered to tell him off for it this time. This was because Demise had gotten bored waiting for the group to give themselves away again and had started slamming out radial pulses of whatever power he felt like using. Everyone scattered again, but now doing so with randomly interspersed jumping.
"We feel like we could have been more prepared for this," the Four panted in a spare moment between dodges. "Like, a lot more prepared. This just seems to be a lot of panic and screaming."
"When you say 'we'," Sketch asked, "are you talking about you Four, or the whole group?"
"The whole group," the Four decided. "Lore is doing more of the screaming than we are, anyway."
This was true, but not necessarily for the reasons that would normally be associated with a terrifying and life-threatening battle. Lore was indeed doing most of the screaming, but very few of them were panicked. A lot of it was just because he thought it was more interesting to run while screaming at the top of his lungs as opposed to just running. Whether or not this was actually helping anything was up for debate, but Lore seemed to enjoy it.
Although, it did give away exactly how far down the spiral he was, which meant that he was the most often targeted, which meant that more and more of his screaming was actually because of terror.
"True enough," Sketch agreed, watching this.
On the other side of the group, which was spaced out rather a lot by this point due to sporadic dodging and the general difference in running speeds between the different Links, Dusk was eyeing all the variously incoming magic attacks (between dodges, that was) and calculating. Specifically, whether or not it would be worth the immunity to the Twilight if he transformed himself right now. On one hand, it would most certainly make staying alive a little bit easier. But on the other hand, it would create a communication barrier, and Dusk wasn't quite sure the benefits of having to dodge less outweighed the risk of being unable to be understood.
He would have debated this more, but then he had to run for his life again. This, ironically, made up his mind for him, because not only was there more running and evading than there was conversation at the moment, but with all the screaming that was happening Dusk rather doubted he would manage to make himself heard anyways.
That decided, Dusk immediately yanked the pouch around his neck out from beneath his tunic, flattened himself to the ground to avoid the incoming lightning, then quickly shucked off the Master Sword and corresponding gear in a pile next to him and proceeded to upend the contents of the pouch into his palm. It only occurred to him that he probably should have handed off his weapon while he still had hands after he no longer had hands.
"Din dangit," he sighed, before snatching the leather straps of his sword in his teeth and taking off sprinting. He dropped the whole contraption in a hasty pile at Realm's feet as he shot past - probably not his best idea, but he was in a rush. Realm let out a startled squawk, followed by a sputtered, "Why are you doing that?" as he hurriedly scooped up the equipment into his arms. Dusk answered this by imposing himself in between Realm and an incoming blast of Twilight magic, which splashed against his fur and dissipated harmlessly.
"Oh," Realm said. "That's a convenient immunity. Got any others?"
Dusk shook his head in a negative.
"Eh, oh well," Realm sighed, then shouldered Dusk's weaponry on his unoccupied side. "I hope you know, I'm probably going to lose these."
"Don't you dare," Dusk growled. Realm, of course, understood exactly none of that, but the growling got the message across well enough.
"I mean, I'll try not to, but… well, we both know me."
That was exactly the reason why Dusk was almost entirely sure that leaving his means of changing back with Realm was a terrible idea, but there also just wasn't enough time to do anything else. So, instead of doing the smart thing, Dusk instead let out a heavy sigh, gave Realm a pointed stare to reinforce his expectation of coming back to his weapons once all this was over, and resumed his sprinting.
Theoretically, the sooner he got to Demise and threw off the god's concentration, the sooner he would stop spamming so many magical projectiles at the rest of the group. As a wolf, Dusk moved at least forty percent faster.
That was his reasoning, anyway.
Meanwhile, everyone else was trying to figure out a better way of dodging than actually dodging, because it was getting to the point that they were spending more time throwing themselves out of the way of various attacks then they were actually making any progress down the spiral. It wasn't going very well, mostly because Demise was throwing so much stuff at them that it was hard to tell what might be safe to block, especially when it was mixed in with so much stuff that wasn't.
Therefore, Gen immediately snagged Lore on one of his merrily-screaming pass-by's and said, "Lore, shut up a minute."
Lore duly shut up, but only so he could screech, "DUCK!" right before dragging Gen to the ground as a lightning strike soared directly through the spot where their heads had been.
"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Gen said, pointing at Lore smugly.
"Nice!" Lore beamed. Then he paused, and asked, "Wait, what were you talking about?"
"Well, I haven't gotten to say it out loud yet," Gen admitted. "But! Lore, can you be the lookout?"
"What am I looking out for?"
"In the short time I've known you," Gen began, "I've come to the conclusion that you are, without question, the loudest person here. So do you think you could yell loud enough that everyone could hear you?"
"Dunno," Lore said thoughtfully. "Please hold."
Gen realized his mistake just in time to clamp his hands over his ears, right before Lore took a massive inhale and let out the largest, top-of-his-lungs, most ear-bleeding shriek that Gen had ever heard in his life. He was blocking the sound out and it still made him want earplugs. Even more impressively, when he took his hands down, he could hear faint echoes of Lore's voice bounding off into the distance.
"Yes," Lore decided.
"That was unnecessary," Gen muttered, sticking a finger into his ear and trying to get rid of the cotton-filled sensation.
"PLEASE TELL ME NOBODY DIED!" Wind yelled from somewhere farther down the spiral.
"WE'RE GOOD!" Gen called back. Then he said to Lore, "Would it be possible for you to watch what Demise is shooting and call for the relevant blocking tactic in response?"
"An excellent idea," Lore declared. "Cāxlee-Ai ta nīgebi uold. Leave it to me!" He began squinting at Demise and muttering to himself about counters to the various magic being thrown around. Gen decided to leave him to it.
But then he had to drag Lore out of the way of an incoming petrification blast because Lore was too busy squinting to notice it, promptly decided that Lore should in no way be left to his own devices, and started towing him by the shirt instead. Lore was unbothered by this.
"That looks reflectable," he muttered to himself.
"Great work, keep it up," Gen wheezed in reply.
There were approximately two types of input that Demise was receiving from his head prisoners. The first kind was mainly composed of various volumes of screaming.
BURN! Majora cried ecstatically. Demise ignored it.
CRUSH THEIR INSIGNIFICANT HEADS! Veran shrieked. Demise ignored her.
LAUNCH THE CABBAGE CANNONS! Zant screeched. Demise, with somewhat more difficulty, ignored him too.
He was doing his best to ignore everything about the screaming; but it was more difficult than he wanted it to be. For one, the screaming was all much louder than anything else happening in his head, which was actually quite irritating. This was because of the other type of input the villains were giving, which was more-or-less advice, and would have actually been quite helpful is Demise could ever manage to hear it.
Concentrate the Twilight into focused pulses, Twilight Ganondorf suggested, or at least that's what Demise thought he'd said. He might also have been talking about palpitating the highlight into a concussed mulch, but… that one didn't make quite as much sense.
"Someone, please shut them up," he growled, rapidly approaching the level of being entirely fed up with the unwanted screaming.
On it. Hey, Majora! Try setting Bellum on fire!
Majora didn't make any verbal reply, aside from a sudden lack of chanting about burning things; but Bellum abruptly joined in on the screaming. Demise snarled. "That is not helping!"
Hey, it got Majora to quiet down, didn't it? Malladus replied. Also, try firing a petrification blast now.
Demise begrudgingly did so, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Bellum's power was now also on fire. Consequently, everything he hit with it turned into flaming statues.
"...This may be worth the noise," Demise decided.
"Oh, come on!" Lore complained. "Now I have to reclassify that!"
"Then do it quickly!" Gen gasped.
Lore squinted again. "Okay… Uh-huh… aha! Got it. Attack Avoidance is officially up and ready for use!"
"Great," Gen panted. "Please scream the appropriate tactic to whatever Demise is doing as loudly as you can and at least five seconds in advance."
"Sure thing," Lore said, then winked, and promptly screeched, "SHIELD!" at the top of his lungs right before a barrage of energy projectiles came barreling in. Several shields were produced from various angles and equipment straps, and the incoming attack was reflected off in other, more harmless directions.
"THANK YOU!" Steam yelled back.
"DUCK!" Lore shrieked in reply, and everyone flattened themselves.
"Stop dodging," Demise snapped.
"HOW ABOUT NO!" one of the Heroes called back, while a different one screamed out avoidance strategies in the background. Demise glared at them all balefully, then growled, "Which of you incompetents has the most unstoppable attack?" to the villains in his head.
Naturally, the first replies Demise received consisted of a great deal of offended snarling, which more or less amounted to a general dislike of being called incompetent. The replies beyond that, though, were rather disappointing.
"Does anyone have an unstoppable attack that does not involve turning into a reason-addled swine?" Demise clarified darkly.
...I might have something, Malladus volunteered.
Meanwhile the group, who had thrown themselves to the ground in order to dodge the latest round of lightning, were cautiously climbing to their feet again and advancing warily down the spiral path once more. The reason for their caution, rather than the frantic sprinting rush that they had been using up until this point, was that Demise had stopped shooting at them and was instead standing with his head tilted slightly to the side, appearing to be listening intently to absolutely nothing that anyone else could hear.
"...This is gonna be bad, isn't it," Red said.
"Probably," Green agreed, sighing.
Abruptly, Demise snapped back to attention. He raised a hand suffused with icy blue energy, which smoked and dripped from his skin like liquid nitrogen, and snapped his fingers together.
With a bellowing whistle that sounded more like a foghorn but still hurt everyone's ears all the same, the Demon Train spawned both itself and a set of tracks from the middle of absolutely nothing and plowed straight into the group, scattering them every which way. Steam let out an indignant screech as he threw himself into a dodge, and glared daggers at the Train as it blew by.
"How is that fair!?" he demanded. "I left that thing in a smoking deconstructed heap being devoured by a void!"
"The fact that it can be summoned and materialized with just a snap would imply that the Demon Train is not, as previously believed, an actual Train," Vio informed him. "In light of this, it would make more sense for the Demon Train to actually be a construct of evil and malice, which just so happens to be taking on the form of a Train in response to the summoner's wishes."
Steam blinked at him. "...And what does that mean in ten words or less?"
Vio sighed. "It's evil corruption that looks like a Train."
"That's cheating!"
"So then summon the Spirit Train," Blue put in. "It's the counter to the Demon Train, right? So it should be made of, like, pure goddess-blessed goodness, or something, and it's just looking like a Train because you want it to or because a Train is the best counter for another Train."
"You say that like I ought to know how to summon it!"
"Snap?"
Steam hastily clicked his fingers against each other a couple times. Nothing happened. Demise, meanwhile, took the opportunity of their distraction to launch more lightning – on fire this time, and conversation got put on hold for a moment while everyone dodged.
"This isn't working!" Steam called, snapping again to the same nonexistent result.
"Maybe you aren't trying hard enough!" Blue yelled back.
"I am snapping as hard as I can!" Steam retorted.
"Well, maybe you just don't have a good enough connection!"
"I drove the Spirit Train across Hyrule more times than I can count!" Steam cried. "For months! I know that thing inside and out, how could I not have a good enough connection!?"
"You say that, but your results aren't agreeing with you," Sketch called. "Are you sure you have enough affinity built up? Affinity is pretty important for summonings!"
Feeling somewhat ignored, Demise snapped his fingers again and launched the Demon Train at the group again. Everyone sprinted out of the way, and without anything to hit the Train went straight up the wall in a marvelous disregard for physics, before arcing around and coming back in for another go.
"YES, I have enough affinity!" Steam shouted, throwing his hands up in exasperation as he began scrambling out of the way again. "Maybe you guys haven't noticed, but I'll have you know that I like trains!"
Farore tilted her head thoughtfully, then smiled.
"Shall we?" she asked her sisters.
"We shall," Din replied, grinning evilly.
"This is going to be the most undignified summons," Nayru sighed, before smirking. "And it will be hilarious."
No sooner had the words, 'I like trains' left Steam's mouth than a high, trilling whistle pierced through the otherwise chaotic battleground noise. The Spirit Train materialized in a flash of gold, spawned a set of tracks right over the top of the ones the Demon Train was using, and smashed headlong into the opposing Train before it got anywhere close to the group. Both machines vanished, presumably to be re-summoned at a later date.
Everyone stared.
"What," Steam said.
"Did you just perform a summons with the words, 'I like trains,'?" Wind asked incredulously.
"I don't know," Steam said blankly.
"Well, try it again and see!"
"I like trains?" Steam tried tentatively. Immediately, the Spirit Train announced itself with a gold flare and a loud whistle, proceeded to spawn a set of tracks from absolutely nowhere, and plowed straight off the edge of the descending spiral, heading directly to where Demise was standing in the center of the chasm. A deafeningly loud CRASH accompanied this action, followed by a fireball explosion, and then a bright gold flash as what was now the wreckage of the Spirit Train disappeared back to wherever it had been summoned from.
"...WHAT!?" Steam sputtered.
"I think you just crashed the Spirit Train on top of Demise's head," Lore observed. "D'you think it did anything?"
"I'll check," Realm volunteered, and crept forwards to poke his head over the edge of the spiral. Then he yelped and yanked himself back to safety, as flaming lightning shot through the spot where he'd been not a moment later.
"Unfortunately, he's fine," Realm reported, looking a bit singed but otherwise okay. "He does seem to be a bit more irritated now, though."
More lightning confirmed this statement, which caused everyone to scatter again. Unfortunately for the group, the lightning was followed by Twilight blasts – most of which a still-wolf Dusk intercepted, but enough that he missed a few and the Links had to dodge anyways – which was followed by petrification shots, and then those were followed by magic seeker spheres, followed by fire, and at that point everyone sort of lost track of what was being thrown at them because there was so much being thrown at them. At some point Lore couldn't keep up with his shouted instructions because the incoming attacks started overlapping, and then everything just went to the Dark World.
Basically, nobody made it out unscathed.
When Demise finally stopped throwing attacks, it quickly became apparent that the descending spiral was... no longer a spiral. Or descending. In fact, Demise had basically obliterated the entire path down, and now the chasm was literally just a chasm. This also resulted in the Links being sprawled on the floor in various and pain-filled groaning clusters, because not only had almost everybody gotten hit by something, but they'd also fallen about twenty feet or so when the spiral path gave out and collapsed beneath them.
There was also quite a lot of rubble everywhere now, as a result.
"Hello," Demise said archly.
Gen blearily lifted his head and froze.
"Guys!" he hissed. "Guys, Demise is right in front of us."
"Well now," Demise said, his voice unnaturally loud in the ringing silence. After the lightning, and the explosions, and the screaming, and especially the Trains, the lack of noise was almost a physical entity. "Which one of you wants to die first?"
"How about no," Lore coughed.
"I'm so sorry," Demise replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "That is not an acceptable answer. Please do try again."
"How about you?" Sketch offered roughly.
"Also not an acceptable answer," Demise said, a bit more annoyed now. "You know what, I'm just going to pick the closest victim and work from there."
Speck, who was the closest victim, turned pale and began inching himself away. Demise frowned at him. "Hold still, it'll be easier that way," he snapped. Then he paused.
"No, easier for me," he said.
"What?" Gen asked.
"Not you," Demise retorted, then scowled. "No, not you!"
"I know that he's actually talking to someone," Realm said quietly, "but this still doesn't make him seem any less insane."
"It's easier for me to kill him if he holds still!" Demise growled to a person that nobody else could hear. "That was I can aim for his heart with minimal fuss and move on to the next victim!"
"I say we attack him while he's distracted," Lore opined.
"I say we regroup and heal up first," Gen countered. "If you haven't noticed, we just lived through a rockslide and have all the appropriate injuries. We're going to get a lot farther with this if we do it at full health."
"I would very much like to torture them all to death!" Demise snarled. "But that would be unnecessarily time-consuming, and allow for possible escapes and subsequent thwartings! Now stop shouting at me about it!"
The Links all winced.
"...I agree with Gen," Wind voted softly, and that seemed to decide it as everybody clustered themselves into one large mass and began passing out Red Potions amongst themselves. Actually, it was mostly Gen. He had a lot more health items on hand than what seemed to be strictly necessary for one person.
"If I burn their corpses, will that make you happy!?" Demise seethed.
"Hello Majora," Mask muttered unhappily, and downed a bottle of Potion.
"How do you know?" Red asked curiously.
"Majora has a... disturbingly unhealthy obsession with setting things on fire," Mask replied, shivering. "The more things burning, the better."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'MY THREATS ARE STUPID'!?" Demise roared.
"...I'm actually kinda curious about the other half of that conversation," Lore mused.
"Of course you are," Gen sighed. "Now drink this and don't complain about it." He shoved a bottle into Lore's hands and raised an eyebrow pointedly. Lore rolled his eyes in response.
"And you think you could do better," Demise said, extremely skeptically. The group glanced at him; he was standing in a loose stance with his arms crossed, frowning furiously at the scorched and blackened wall in a way that said he wasn't actually seeing the wall at all. "Really. Will you deign to shut up if I do so?"
"He's either foolishly arrogant or rightfully confident for ignoring us as we heal, and I can't decide which one it is," Realm whispered to Dusk, who had made his way over to get his weapon gear back. Realm tapped him on the head with it, waited patiently through the ten or so seconds it took for Dusk to change back to hylian again, then handed the whole contraption over so Dusk could strap it back into place.
"Considering what he did to the spiral, I'm going to assume the latter," Dusk murmured back.
"FINE," Demise snapped. Abruptly, he switched his focus back to the world around him and leveled a baleful glare at the huddling Links; then, with a completely blank expression and an even blanker voice, Demise cleared his throat and recited, "'Majora's current lack of a physical presence will only be a minor impediment in his ability to torture you all to within inches of your lives. However, he is not likely to stop there, and is much more likely to go all the way.' Happy now?"
"...What?" Lore said.
"I DELIVERED IT PERFECTLY!" Demise bellowed, once again staring furiously at the middle distance. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers for a moment, listening to something, began to spit out a string of insults, then cut himself off halfway through the rant and instead said, "You know what, I'm ignoring you all."
He began building up the energy for another attack in his hands, only to immediately be interrupted again. This time though, the interruption came from a source that did not only exist in Demise's head.
A blur of white and red shot into the chasm and resolved at Demise's feet into the form of an impressively sparkly and excessively pale man. He stared up at the Demon King with utter adoration and declared, "My Master!" with loud exuberance.
Demise stared at him with all the derision that a normal hylian might bestow upon a skulltula. "And where have youbeen?"
"My most humble and sincere apologies, my King," the man said. "Please, allow me to make it up to you!"
"...Accepted," Demise stated, right before plunging his hand straight through the crimson cloak the pale man was wearing and deep into his chest. Contrary to what the Links would have considered to be a normal reaction, the pale man started laughing.
"Gen," Dusk whispered, poking their newest member in the shoulder. "Gen, who is that?"
"Ghirahim," Gen hissed back. "He's Demise's most devoted follower, I've fought him like three times. But I have no idea what's happening right now."
As if on cue, Demise's arm clenched, Ghirahim's laugh choked to a halt, and the Demise ripped his arm out of Ghirahim's chest and dragged an absolutely massive black jagged-edged sword along with it. Ghirahim seemed to almost fold in on himself as the sword emerged; by the time the whole blade came free, Ghirahim was nowhere to be seen. The sword, however, trembled and pulsed as though it had a heartbeat.
Everyone spent a stunned moment just staring; Gen, meanwhile, let out a low and emphatic string of curses. Something seemed to have occurred to him, and he was decidedly unhappy about it.
And unfortunately, that moment spent staring was the exact time that Demise brandished the sword in his hand and sent them all flying with it.
Gen came to a rolling stop against the far rock wall, then lifted his head and blearily squinted to see what had hit him. It took him a moment to resolve the black-and-orange blob into the shape of Demise, but once he did he rather wished he hadn't, because Demise holding his sword meant that everything had just gotten that much more difficult when it really hadn't needed to be.
"Goddess' Grace," Gen cursed to himself, then frantically tapped at the Master Sword's hilt behind his shoulder and hissed, "Fi, Fi, Fi," in rapid-fire until the sword spirit materialized herself, looking ever-so-slightly irritated.
"Yes, Master-" She began, then stopped and looked down. One silver-blue eyebrow inched minisculely upwards. "Master, why are you on the ground?"
"Not important right now," Gen whisper-snapped. "Fi, did you know Ghirahim is a sword spirit?"
Fi blinked. "All great swords are imbued with a spirit."
"Did you not think to mention this!?"
"Ghirahim was without his Master and unable to manifest. It was unimportant."
"Well it's important now!" Gen sputtered, and pointed a frantic finger at the slowly approaching Demise, sword held loosely in one hand. Fi observed this, looking once at Demise and then back at Gen.
"Master, I have identified the Demon King Demise."
"I KNOW THAT ALREADY!" Gen screeched, abandoning his attempts to be subtle. "Analyze him before he kills us, please and thank you!"
"Analyzing," Fi stated, going silent for several moments while she calculated.
"Quick question," Lore said, having been alerted by Gen's shout and pointing at Fi. "Who is she and why does she live in your weapon?"
"If I take the time to explain that story to you then Demise is going to kill us before I get through the first paragraph," Gen breathed. "We are in so much trouble, I can't even begin to find a metaphor accurate enough."
"Analysis complete," Fi announced abruptly. "Demise, the Demon King. He wields the Demon Sword Ghirahim with unparalleled skill and ruthless ferocity. This eternal being has conquered time itself and is the source of all evil in the world. I am detecting energy sources of an unknown multitude within Demise's form, making his already substantial power nigh immeasurable. I predict a ninety-eight percent chance that confronting the Demon King now will result in your death, Master."
"Tell me something I don't know," Gen griped.
"Yes, Master. Compilation and analysis of your previous actions when in similar circumstances leads me to the conclusion that you will be facing Demise regardless of the odds, and as such I have taken the liberty of examining the Demon King's most probable combat style."
"Ooh, she's sassy," Lore observed. "I like her."
"Lore, not now," Gen snapped.
"Observation indicates that frontal assault of any kind will be blocked and retaliated against, likely with severe and painful prejudice," Fi continued. "Stealth and misdirection is advised; however, my projections indicate that such tactics only have a five percent chance of succeeding. Additionally, in his current state, it is highly unlikely that Demise will accrue any damage at all."
Gen squeezed his eyes shut and let out a resigned sigh. "Is there any good news?"
Fi contemplated that for a moment.
"Ghirahim is no longer able to molest you with his tongue, Master."
"What!?" Lore demanded.
"Molest is the wrong word, but that is a perk," Gen agreed quickly. "Not a very big one in the grand scheme of things, but thanks for trying to cheer me up, Fi."
"It is my pleasure, Master."
Lore flapped his hands around aimlessly. "See, this is why we tell stories first! The blue girl who lives in your sword and this tongue-molester guy seem like things I ought to know about!"
"I don't know what that means," Gen informed him. "Also, I - OHCRAPGETDOWN!"
He lunged forwards and Fi went with him, flashing into the blade of Gen's Master Sword right as he brought it up to lock with Demise's own sword with a sharp metallic ring. The power difference was immediately evident. Gen crumpled to his knees like wet paper, and Demise bore down on him with unrelenting force.
"I'm regretting this so much," Gen wheezed. Behind him, Lore scrambled to a somewhat safer location and dragged several other Links along for the ride - which, while a good idea, was not done with the most stealth. Then again, Demise was barely paying attention to Lore as it was; he was, after all, only one Link in the greater group of a dozen or more.
"Are you going to move, or am I going to have to make you?" Demise asked threateningly.
"Well, considering how you're going to try and kill everyone behind me if I give you anything even closely resembling an advantage," Gen croaked, valiantly attempting suave confidence when all he was really achieving was pathetic resistance, "you're gonna have to make me."
"Deal," Demise replied, and Gen had just enough time to decide he'd made a horrible mistake before Demise sent him flying. He hit the far wall of the chasm all the way on the other side with enough force to knock him breathless, and he slid limply to the wreckage-strewn ground with all the grace of a boneless fish. Given that he was pretty sure he'd just broken a few, he felt this was an apt choice of movement.
"...Ow," Gen decided weakly, and then promptly passed out. Wind, who was the closest, sprinted over and shook him a little bit.
"Oh, that doesn't bode well," he muttered when Gen didn't respond. "Guys, Gen's out cold!"
"On it!" Lore declared. He moved to Gen's other side and began prying off the newest Link's boot, ignoring the confused stare Wind was giving him. "I got this, he'll be back with the conscious in just a couple minutes," Lore continued firmly. "Go and hit the jerk who did it."
Wind made a half-grin half-grimace, the kind of expression composed of attempted courage but mostly actually severe insecurity. But he pulled out his Skull Hammer anyways and sprinted off, most likely to attempt to beam Demise in the head with it. Lore wished him luck, then turned back to wrestling Gen's boot off his foot.
"I learned this trick on one of my adventures," he explained to a nearby, perplexed-looking Steam. "I forget which, though."
With that, Gen's boot came off and Lore brandished a Roc's Feather with an evil grin. Steam promptly took a few steps back.
Dusk, meanwhile, was discovering that his Inner Wolf Instinct had - and he had no idea when this had happened - absorbed the dozen-odd Links he'd met over the course of the past week or so and firmly cemented them into his mental Pack Designation. As a result, Demise had been elevated from 'Possible Danger' to 'Pack Threat', and now Dusk was having to keep a very strong mental grip on what Midna liked to call his 'Papa Wolf' reaction.
...Due to the fact that he was currently charging Demise while whipping a Ball-and-Chain through the air that was heavier than he himself was, Dusk suspected he was failing in that regard. This was why he was now bringing down his weapon on Demise's head.
Except that Demise caught the attack, one-handedly, and without any visible strain whatsoever. Dusk, who had to work to lift the Ball-and-Chain off the ground with both hands, much less heft the thing above his head, found this to be distinctly unfair and he glared at his opponent accordingly.
Demise let out a smug chuckle, then jerked the Ball-and-Chain towards him to drag Dusk forwards. At the same time, he brought his sword around in his other hand-
Wind picked that exact moment to arrive with his Hammer, jumping up and aiming for the side of Demise's face. He'd been hoping to come in while Demise was distracted with Dusk - but then Demise proved that he could multitask. The Ball-and-Chain, which he was still holding with one hand above his head, came down and around and collided with Wind in midair, effectively knocking both him and his Hammer off course and sending all three into the far wall, landing just a few feet away from where Lore was waking up Gen. Wind understandably, was unconscious before he ever hit the floor.
Dusk snarled. Which, may not have been his best move, because it reminded Demise that he still had another target, and the god immediately capitalized on that fact. His massive blade flashed around with intent to impale, and Dusk realized this just in time to lurch backwards out of the way. Almost. The sword was longer than he was, and Dusk just wasn't fast enough to cover that much distance in just a couple seconds. The very tip of the blade caught in his shoulder before continuing on, and Dusk made the executive decision to keep lurching backwards. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the shoulder joint completely dislocated and with a deep gash to boot. Dusk, being left handed, could recognize a need for a retreat when he saw one - despite what the wolf in his head was insisting. He compromised with his head-wolf by making a beeline towards the now-awake but incredibly groggy Gen and the newly-unconscious Wind instead.
In his wake, Red, Vio, Blue, and Green began launching their own assault to keep Demise occupied, and Dusk just hoped they would have better luck than he'd had. He gripped his left shoulder with his right hand in an attempt to hold the uselessly flopping limb steady and scurried over to Wind, who in his mind had fared much worse. Dusk grimaced. Pulling his Ball-and-Chain off the smaller Link with only one working arm was gonna take a couple minutes, and he struggled accordingly.
In the background, Demise let out an irritated bellow, which was followed by a pair of loud SLAP sounds as Red and Vio both went flying into the wall above Dusk's head, then fell limply into a heap just a few feet to Wind's left. Dusk, having at last managed to haul his weapon off Wind, nearly startled into dropping the thing right back down. It took a few moments of frantic, one-armed fumbling for Dusk to force the Ball-and-Chain into his bag instead. On the ground, Wind was still out cold and Red and Vio a few feet away were equally so; a few more feet away, Lore had finally managed to get a conscious response out of Gen. Dusk debated with himself for a split second before beelining for the pair of Links who could actually answer him.
"Status?" Dusk demanded, as Demise roared something in the background and Blue shouted back several rage-filled insults. Gen blinked at him blearily and attempted to reply, but only managed a slurred mumble.
"He says he's fine, the liar," Lore translated. "I can most definitely tell you that he is not fine."
"Red Potion," Dusk said, and went to grab in his bag for a bottle. Unfortunately he made the mistake of trying to do this with his bad arm, and the entire attempt ended with a distinct lack of Red Potion and a great deal of pain.
"Ahhhaffshunm," Gen garbled.
"...What?"
"He says he's got some," Lore clarified. "But I think he's delusional." Behind them, Blue led a screaming charge against Demise, having at some point recruited Speck and the Four to the effort. Demise seemed unconcerned by this.
"We used all his stock already, I'm pretty sure," Lore muttered, looking up and doing a quick headcount with a deep frown on his face. "Dusk, how much have you got?"
"Only two of my Bottles actually have Red Potion right now," Dusk grumbled. "How about you?"
"Oh, I have plenty of Bottles," Lore sighed. "But only one of them has Red Potion in it. The others are all full of… well, not Red Potion."
"Okay then," Dusk said. "We'll just have to ration. With any luck we'll only have to split the Bottles between-"
Realm, Steam, Mask, and Ocarina went charging past with weapons drawn and a great deal of off-key screeching, which cut off whatever Dusk had been about to say. This was followed by an alarmingly loud explosion, and then Realm and Mask came rocketing back through, thoroughly unconscious and trailing more smoke than was probably healthy before hitting the rock wall and landing right on top of Red and Vio.
"...the five of us," Dusk finished, inaccurately. "Or seven. I'm sure we can stretch-"
He was cut off again by Ocarina slamming into the wall and joining his older self in unconscious, shortly followed by Speck sprinting to join the chaos with the Four and Sketch right on his heels. This mainly resulted in Demise backhanding Sketch into a cliff right along with all the other previously victimized Links.
"...I'm just gonna stop," Dusk muttered, and yanked the cork off a Bottle with his teeth and taking three measured swallows. Then he knelt down and began maneuvering the others into positions to drink without without drowning, while Lore held another Bottle up for Gen. The effectiveness of this on mostly unconscious people was debatable.
Meanwhile, Blue was doing his best impression of a raging Cucco swarm - which unfortunately for him wasn't actually getting him anywhere, because Green was maintaining a Death Grip on the back of Blue's tunic and wasn't planning on letting go under any circumstances. Blue felt this was highly unfair, because Demise had backhanded Vio and Red into a cliff wall and needed to be duly punished for that. Green, on the other hand, felt it was entirely fair. Being more level-headed than Blue was, Green possessed the fundamental understanding that charging Demise in the manner that Blue wanted would only result in they themselves being backhanded into a clif wall. In the interest of avoiding this, as Green rightly suspected it would hurt, he was very firmly keeping Blue from going any closer than twenty feet to Demise.
Blue, naturally, did not appreciate this, but Green didn't particularly have the time nor the interest in what Blue appreciated right now. He had more important things to worry about, like keeping Blue alive to be unappreciative.
Speck, who was next to them, eyed the furious Blue with apprehension before asking Green in a concerned voice, "Is this a common issue?"
"Demise pushed the Red Button," Green explained shortly, and redoubled his grip as Blue attempted to lunge forwards again. "Blue likes to pretend he doesn't care, but he really doesn't like it when Red gets hurt." He paused, then added, "Well, none of us do, really. Personally, if I didn't have to hold Blue back and if Demise wasn't so absolutely terrifyingly out of my league, I'd probably be charging him myself, if not for Red then for Vio."
"Oh," Speck said, not having anything else to say.
"As it is," Green continued, "I know Red and Vio aren't dead, and I also know they're out of Demise's mind for now because he's occupied with the rest of us. So, for now, they're about as safe as they're going to get. Which means that my job right now is to keep Blue from doing something stupid, and that's exactly what I'm doing."
"Keep doing it then," Speck replied, with a look on his face that indicated he'd just been hit with an idea. He pulled a pot from his Bag - not the Jar he'd shown everyone earlier that let him change size, which was round and patterned like water and with a very prominent crack in the bottom, but one with handles and a pair of wings on either side of the mouth and wind swirls painted across the widest part. The pottery warped and inhaled, sucking a great deal of flaming rubble into itself, and then Speck pointed the opening at Demise's face and all the debris shot back out, now with even more fire.
The sad part was, it probably would have worked brilliantly if Demise hadn't been able to spawn a Twilight shield, which he immediately did. All the fiery projectiles Speck had just thrown got sent right back at him, and unlike Demise, Speck's only available blocking strategy was a relatively small metal square, which was in no way large enough to handle the entire cloud of rubble coming at him.
In other words, Speck went down like the rocks that had just clocked him in the head.
"That's not good," the Four muttered. Then they all did a collective double-take as Blue charged past them, screeching insults at the top of his lungs. The Four turned their heads to look at Green, who was staring after Blue with a dead expression. "Weren't you holding him?"
"He got away," Green said redundantly, releasing a heavy, why-me sigh. "Come on, if we don't follow him in he's gonna get his butt handed to him. Blue doesn't remember that strategy is a thing that exists when he's angry." He took off sprinting after his sibling, grumbling irritated complaints with every step.
"That's reassuring," the Four mumbled, not reassured in the slightest, and broke into a run on Green's heels. This was admittedly harder than they were making it look, because the battlefield was a mess and their synchronization tended to work the best when there wasn't any rubble to trip over. Green outran them easily, because he didn't have that problem - and also because he was a leader going to prevent his teammate from doing something stupid, and those sorts of situations required top speeds.
Steam, on the other hand, opted to hang back because he was pretty sure that charging in was just going to get him backhanded into a cliff wall like everyone else. Instead, he cleared his throat and hesitantly said, "Er… I like trains?"
The Spirit Train announced itself with a whistle and a shower of gold, then immediately took off towards Demise. Steam stared after it, mouth hanging slightly open. He couldn't decide how he felt about this new development. On one hand, being able to launch an entire locomotive at people was definitely a power move; but on the other hand, this opened him up to a lot of bad Train puns. Steam was not particularly a fan of puns, but he wasn't sure that his dislike outweighed the usefulness of a battle finisher.
It was honestly debatable.
Demise stared at everything approaching him and rolled his eyes, then slammed his sword into the ground point-first. The air around him exploded into a radial cone of fire, which then rushed outwards to meet all the incoming attacks and opponents. Blue took a full head-to-toe blast, which knocked him out right then and there. Green, just a few steps behind him, flattened himself beneath his shield just in time to let the fire pass right over him. The Four, farther back, got hit with more of the concussive blast than the actual fire and were sent flying backwards into a wall, where the green member passed out and the other three received various levels of head injury. And the Spirit Train charged straight into the blaze, emerging on the other side as a melted mess and dissolving back into golden light long before it ever reached its target.
From his safe distance, Steam shrieked, "Oh, COME ON!"
Green took the opportunity to pop out from under his shield and take revenge for his fallen teammates, which culminated in him doing his level best to bury his sword in Demise's knee. Unfortunately Demise kicked him into a cliff wall before the Hero could try, and Green was summarily knocked unconscious.
Steam suddenly found himself as one of the only two Links who was both still conscious and still in fighting condition, and let out a tiny whimper in spite of himself. Then, coming to the entirely accurate conclusion that he was so very out of his league with this, Steam grabbed the burnt and passed-out Blue (because Green would kill him if he found out Steam had left Blue behind) and made a Strategic Retreat.
It didn't quite work, because he was the only target, had nowhere to really retreat to, and was dragging a fellow Hero of equal size on his back. Demise, however, seemed content to let Steam scramble away to the other side of the chasm and follow with slow, stalking steps while his prey panicked.
"Please tell me we have backup Potion," Steam begged, depositing Blue next to his other three counterparts, who were at varying stages of awareness by this point.
"Not nearly enough," Lore replied, who for the interested was the other Link in fighting condition since he'd stayed back to try and wake Gen back up. "Also, we split it between people already and don't have anymore left. Anybody who's unconscious right now is gonna be staying that way."
Steam looked around, counting. Speck was down, as were Blue and Green. The Four were having hive-mind issues and were out of commission. Sketch was still out, as well as Realm and Mask, and everyone else was… well, conscious might be a strong word, but their eyes were open, so Steam supposed that counted.
Even if they did all look a bit… groggy. To be honest, only a few Links were really actually fit to be Demise's opponent right now. Steam and Lore, obviously, but also Dusk as long as he didn't use one of his arms. Wind could fight too, as long as he didn't move too fast. His dilated pupils pretty clearly showed that he had a concussion, but he was awake, and alert, which was more than could be said about most of the rest of the group. Gen also seemed pretty alert, aside from the fact that he was facing the wrong direction… and that kinda put some suspicion on his alertness to be honest.
Everyone else who wasn't already passed out was just kind of… there, and blearily blinking far too rapidly and showing far too little comprehension of what was happening to be of any help.
"Steam," Lore said suddenly, eyes focused behind the Hero of Trains' back. "Demise is still coming."
Steam lurched around and found Demise to be a frightening twenty feet away, with a smirk on his mouth that cracked his face like a jagged chasm. The Hero let out a yelp, along with a frantically rushed "ILIKETRAINS!"
The Spirit Train plowed headlong into Demise - and was then deflected off into an adjacent cliff wall, where it vanished in a shower of gold and mangled machinery. Demise kept coming.
"Oh my Din, oh my Din, oh my Din, oh my Din," Steam babbled in a rush, then yanked his sword out of its sheath and charged. Somewhat predictably, this ended with Steam impacting the cliff wall and joining the already unconscious.
Lore, who was now definitively the last Link left uninjured, told Demise something extremely rude in a language that none of the awake Heroes recognized. Then he turned his head and said, "I'm just gonna throw this out here right now. I am not going to win this fight."
"I know," Dusk said.
"We are probably going to fail," Lore continued bluntly.
"I know," Dusk said.
"So I just wanna say," Lore concluded, watching as Demise took the last step to loom over them all, "that it's been a real honor meeting all you guys. Even the ones who are too out cold to hear me admit it."
"...We know," Dusk said, and reached to his side to turn Gen around, because Gen was nodding in agreement but not quite doing it in the correct direction.
"Kinda sucks though," Lore sighed. "Reality was sort of a nice place to live. I think I'm gonna miss it."
"Yeah," Dusk agreed. "We know."
"Oh," Lore said, noticing that Demise had brandished his sword in the air and was coating it in all sorts of nasty-looking energies. "Excuse me, I gotta try and block this incoming strike one last time."
He put up his shield right as Demise's sword came down, and to his mild surprise Dusk and Gen launched themselves and their own shields up to join him. It was quite a nice sentiment, the three of them putting up one last stand against the deity trying to destroy them all.
It was just also a little bit awkward, because it was going to fail.
"NOT THIS TIME!" Farore snarled, her hands already lighting up green.
"But the Interference Laws-" Nayru began.
"Screw the Interference Laws!" Fafore snapped. "I will not let this be the end. Not on my watch."
The whole chasm flashed, light the color of new spring growth blasting into every crevice and making the whole world vanish for a split second. Then, slowly, the brightness faded away, and Demise found himself blinking at a patch of empty ground, where approximately none of his victims were lying dead.
In fact, there was no sign of the Heroes at all.
Demise, very calmly, lowered his sword. Then he, very calmly, walked into the center of the chasm. Then, very calmly, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and very not calmly screamed at the top of his lungs.
This went on for several minutes. At least one tree in the Faron Woods fell over from the projected force. Several ledges crumbled into rubble. Every single crystal in the Skyview Temple shattered.
"Those worms," Demise seethed, once he had finished with his several minutes of screaming. "When I get my hands on them…"
Wait, what just happened? Malladus asked.
Divine interference, Veran hummed. Someone spirited the little Heroes away before we could kill them.
"They are going to pay," Demise promised darkly. "Clearly, it's not going to be enough to just get rid of reality anymore. If I really want to achieve my goals, I'm going to have to get rid of the goddesses too."
Whoa, uh, Onox said. I'm all for revenge on the Heroes, but going after deities seems a bit… out of my ability.
I agree with Onox, Twilight Ganondorf said. I may be evil, but I'm at least sensible. I know when I'm outmatched.
"I am a deity," Demise snarled.
Yes, but you're… Hyrule Ganon paused for a moment. You're not very intimidating.
Now, Demise had some anger issues. And most of the time, he could work around these. Every now and then, though, his anger got the best of him. When this happened, Demise tended to make declarations of destruction and revenge that he had too much pride to not follow up on once he'd calmed down - for the interested, this was how he'd ended up on a quest to destroy the universe in the first place.
However, Demise at this moment was livid.
"Alright then," he said, calm and controlled and very, very cold. "Here's what we're going to do. You all will be sent after the Heroes. You will go after them. You will confront them. And you will defeat them. You will not have a choice in this matter. And if you fail…" Demise let his words trail ominously. "Well. See to it that you don't fail."
Several of the voices in his head could clearly hear the fine print in between the words Demise was actually saying, and began loudly protesting this new plan, but Demise ignored them all. One by one, the villains were dragged screaming from his head and cast out into the timeline - still very much attached to Demise, but forced out as an extension of his will, this time.
Demise sort of wished he'd thought of that sooner.
Now. His head was finally silent, and Demise had some goddesses to find. And torture. And kill. And… well, he'd make the rest of the list as he went.
He vanished with a single snap of his fingers.
"I know what you're going to say," Farore told her sisters stiffly. "And I don't care. I'd do it again, given the chance."
"I'm… not sure I blame you," Din began carefully. "But now Demise knows we've involved ourselves. He'll be coming after us."
"Let him," Farore growled. "He's not the only one with tricks up his sleeves."
"He outmatches us right now," Nayru said. "All that power he's taken from his Hatred Incarnations? We won't stand a chance."
"Believe me, I know."
"...You have a plan?" Din asked.
"This is my plan," Farore said, spreading her arms. "I'm stalling."
Her sisters stared at her.
"That's a terrible plan," Nayru said slowly.
"Look, we'd only have a chance at combating Demise if we got a similar power boost to what he has," Farore sighed. "And we don't. The next best thing is our Attributes, with our backing. And if you hadn't noticed, we almost lost every single one of mine just now. They're our best hope. I'm just making sure that hope stays alive."
More silence.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Din said quietly.
"Honestly?" Farore let out another sigh. "Me too." Then she shook herself and said, "Now, I've got damage control for Courage to do. Want to join me?"
"Yes," Din said firmly, while Nayru simply nodded. "And hey, I've still got some popcorn. Any takers?"
"Caramel, please," Farore requested.
Lore lifted his head, blinked blearily for a couple minutes, and slowly registered the fact that he was not, in fact, dead. Glances to his right and left informed him that his fellow Heroes were also not, in fact, dead, and more to the point didn't seem to have any of their previous injuries either.
Also, they seemed to be on a mountaintop. Lore blinked again, then decided that he was confused.
Everyone else seemed to be asleep, though, and after the experience they'd all just had, Lore didn't feel like he should wake them. Come to think of it, why was Lore even awake? He was exhausted.
That was about the point where Lore passed out.
Down below at the base of the mountain, a large purple bat and an equally large blue boar materialized from thin air. In a Castle, Princess Zelda set out with an entourage to investigate why the mountain had lit up with such a bright green flash. In a cave, a dark figure blinked glowing red eyes and turned his head in the direction of the newly-arrived Heroes, a fanged smirk growing on his face.
But for now, the Heroes were asleep, because Farore had said so and she was their patron goddess and, really, they just didn't have a choice in the matter because she was more important than they were, and subsequently knew better.
The adventure was only just beginning.
Was not expecting this to take so long, holy crap. I just kept finding things to include that seemed really important, like Fi, and a better Ghirahim entrance, a more coherent beat-down, a better Spirit Train summons… the list goes on, but long story short I think I doubled my chapter word count again.
But, I like it more, so that's all that counts.
Changeling
Linguistic Translations:
-Labrynnian
-Cāxlee-Ai ta nīgebi uold (I excel at being loud.)
Thanks to Marie Merlia Maribeth, Philozophy, and Chaos Red-Eyes for favoriting/following!
bruh: Well, I like you too. And to answer that other question, Demise does weird stuff like reality warping on a daily basis. So a missing goddess statue is perfectly acceptable. Also, because as the author, I say so.
PsycoFangirl: Hmmm... my Zant, maybe. Canon Zant is more likely to kill you in your sleep and not know it's creepy.
Demon King 73: Thanks!
Thegeniusyoshi: Umm... I forget. I'm gonna have to get back with you on that one. Like, scour my internet history from three months ago and things…
Guest: Hyrule Warriors has been confirmed as non-canon, so no. Since Zelda Wii U is not out yet and I have no idea of the storyline, also no. The Hero before Gen though... I decided against it, mainly because we know very little about him. And also, he wasn't the one who started the line of the Heroes. Gen was. Plus, I've already got who-knows-how-many Links to keep track of... handling yet another one might be too much.
Find me on Tumblr at changeling-rin!
Find the fan-run ask blog on Tumblr at ask-the-dimensional-links!